Margaret is a shy, pale, middle-class Englishwoman who is reluctantly engaged to her older, twittish neighbor Syl. Both bride- and groom-to-be still live with their mothers in the humdrum suburb of Croydon. However Margaret has been acting strangely ever since a vacation in Egypt, where she stayed with her mother's friend Marie-Claire. She secretly despises Syl, but does not resist when her mother, who has repressed the failure of her own matrimony, insists on marriage for the sake of social convention.
Acting
Lena Headey's breakthrough—every repressed glance speaks volumes.
Writing
Wesker adapts Beryl Bainbridge's merciless social observation.
Production
Croydon as character: beige wallpaper as emotional prison.
Director
Waris Hussein
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Part of a 1990s wave of BBC literary adaptations exploring repressed queer desire in postwar Britain, alongside 'The Buddha of Suburbia' and 'Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.'
Jeanne Moreau took the role of Lili specifically to work with Hussein again after their 1966 collaboration; she reportedly rewrote several of her English lines on set.
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